Bishkek and Osh

In the same way that many of Kyrgyzstan’s cities and towns feel like large villages, Bishkek seems more like a laid-back provisional town than a capital city. It’s a mix of low-rise Soviet-era housing and large 1960s modernist concrete municipal buildings, very much from the
same school of design as the pre-renovation London South Bank Centre. These could have felt a little drab if it weren’t for the abundance of parks, large public squares, and wide leafy roads, all of which seemed popular and well used. The permanently snow capped Ala-Too mountains visible from the city centre provide a magnificent backdrop.

Most people, us included, visit Kyrgyzstan for the amazing natural beauty of the landscape not the cities and whilst there are few “must see” attractions Bishkek was a pleasant place to spend a few days while we waited for visas. One of our highlights was the afternoon we spent relaxing in the luxurious Russian banya – still evidently a popular feature of daily life. Essentially a large bathhouse with
sauna and an ice cold splash pool, we joined locals as they sweated it out, scrubbed their skin to within a inch of its life and beat themselves with bundles of oak leaves, all stark naked except in some cases for, bizarrely, a traditional Kyrgyz tall white felt hat. We also feasted on the first international cuisine we’d found since Nepal and enjoyed the few swanky bars and restaurants frequented by expats
and NGO workers and made the most of some draft cider we found.


However, despite being the most cosmopolitan city we’ve visited for some time there’s still evident poverty, with careworn buildings, unpaved roads, open drains, and people collecting water from standpipes and suffering the effects of years of hard vodka drinking. There are few shops in the capital and most food and clothes shopping still seems to take place in the bazaar, with those corner shops we found poorly stocked, except for a vast array of alcohol. GDP too is still very low, at just $941 per year per capita, the equivalent of around £1,600 given lower local prices. Corruption, both large and small scale, is also reportedly a real issue, although thankfully we didn’t experience any.


From Bishkek we travelled to Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city which is located in the south of the country. The Ala-Too mountains effectively divide the northern and the southern parts of the country, especially in winter when snow closes the mountain passes, with the South generally poorer, more Islamic and ethnically mixed than the more Russified North.

The journey from north to south was visually stunning: the road wound up and down several mountain passes above 3,500m before opening out to pasture land with yurts set up for summer grazing and vast herds of animals that seemed to enjoy wandering over the road at regular intervals. We travelled by shared taxi, as we have throughout Kyrgyzstan. Much faster than buses and minibuses, shared taxis run set
routes between cities, charge by the seat and generally drive without stopping making them an exceptionally convenient and fast – although occasionally hair-raising – method of transport. “Highlights” on this journey included the handbrake failing on a steep hill when the driver got out to pour more water into the overheated engine and his continual overtaking on blind corners while simultaneously smoking and texting!



Osh is only 5km away from the Uzbekistan border, is partly surrounded by Uzbek territory, and has a large (40%) Uzbek population. Ethnic tension between Uzbeks (who tend to be wealthier) and Kyrgyz in Osh has been a frequent cause of strife, most recently in June 2010 when riots broke out and an estimated 200 to 2000 people were killed. Even now we were repeatedly warned by locals not to go out at dark as the threat of violence was still high. During the day however we felt no obvious tension. On the Sunday we spent there the parks were filled with families and mixed Uzbek and Kyrgyz groups enjoying the sunshine and the people we spoke to were keen to stress the friendship between the two.

Lake Issy-Kul and the Tien Shan Mountains

Kyrgyzstan feels much further than it actually is from China. Chinese faces, food, architecture, chopsticks and culture all vanished as we crossed the mountains into the Kyrgyz steppe. Instead the Soviet legacy is immediately apparent and Kyrgyzstan is a fascinating blend of Russian and Central Asian influences. In the northern towns there are as many Slavic faces as there are Mongoloid and Central Asian; tracksuits and trainers are as common as headscarves; battered ladas compete for space on the roads with herdsmen on horseback; Lenin statues continue to stand proudly over central squares; the food is a combination of shashlik, noodles, borscht and mashed potatoes, with weights as well as prices listed on every menu just as in Russia, and the first leavened bread we’ve seen since Moscow. The streets are a mixture of mud brick houses, Siberian style wooden cottages and monstrous dilapidated Soviet blocks of flats. Both Russian and Kyrgyz are widely spoken, with both written in Cyrillic script, and while Islam is the dominant religion here it seems less strictly adhered to than it is in Western China (drinking certainly plays a larger role here in social customs), and Russian Orthodox churches as well as mosques are visible in the towns. This Russian influence, and the use of an alphabet that we can read, even if not understand, gives Kyrgyzstan a much more familiar feel than anywhere we’ve been for some time, and at times has us almost believing we’re back on the eastern fringes of Europe.

We spent a few days in Karakol, a sleepy, slightly run down provisional capital on the edge of the Tien Shan mountains in the north east of the country near the Kazakh border. Karakol has an interesting animal market and beautiful old wooden Russian Orthodox church and faded wooden houses, but it's hard to believe walking around its quiet streets that it's a provincial capital. In season apparently the town is filled with tourists, primarily Russians and Kazakhs, drawn in winter by the opportunities to ski and in summer to trek and climb. In late April though the town felt almost deserted.

South of the town, the mountains rise dramatically above the plain. Climbing up into them we found a beautiful landscape utterly unlike the open grassland we’d ridden through in the centre of the country. Here we walked through narrow Alpine valleys, passing stretches of pine forest and open meadows. The higher passes remained closed by snow and even in these lower valleys patches of snow remained, yet through the grass wild violets, and crocuses miniature pansies were appearing.


For much of this year we’ve felt disconnected from the seasons, avoiding autumn by travelling east through a perpetual Indian Summer and then skipping winter in the tropics of South East Asia. Finally it feels like spring is here and we’re back in step with the seasons as we expect them. In the mountains we walked to close to the snow line, camped out in an open meadow near a rushing river of icy water and bathed in natural hot springs.


Throughout our trip we’ve come across repeated references to some of the great 19th Century European explorers of Asia. We heard of Nikolai Przewalski first in Mongolia, where the wild horses there bear his name, and then again in Tibet where we was one of the first Europeans to explore the country and came close to becoming the first European to reach Lhasa. Between 1867 and 1885 he travelled through much of Central Asia, China, Mongolia and Tibet, mapping huge areas and collecting vast numbers of plant, animal and bird specimens. On the eve of his fifth expedition he died near Karakol and for a while the town was named in his honour, and there remains a small monument to him and a fascinating museum recording his achievements.

Just north of Karakol, stretching west for 170 km lies Lake Issyk-Kul, the second largest alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in South America. Unlike Central Kyrgyzstan, much of the land around the lake is cultivated and from its shores to the foothills of the Tien Shan to the north stretch fields edged with lines of poplars. In Soviet days, spa resorts lined the shores of Issyk-Kul. Most have now closed, although a ribbon of rather run-down houses and cafes still lines the main road around the shore. About midway along the northern shore of the lake lies Cholpon Ata, a small non-descript town where we spent a couple of relaxing days.

Just outside the town we visited a field strewn with glacial boulders decorated between the 8th Century BC and the 1st Century AD with paintings of goats, sheep, camels and hunting scenes. Unfortunately it started raining as we arrived, and most of the petroglyphs are unmarked so we spent an hour or so trying to spot the drawings – some are amazingly well preserved but others almost indistinguishable from the marks of rain or lichen – and then headed sodden back to town.

Cholpon-Ata’s main attractions are its beaches and lakeside setting. Like much of urban and semi-urban Kyrgyzstan, the area around the beach looked shabby and neglected, with a collection of half-finished buildings, overgrown bushes, derelict trailers and rubbish. Even the sanatorium, which in its heyday apparently used to attract the elite of the Communist Party, looked rundown and shut up. Yet the lakeside itself was still stunningly beautiful: the white sand and impossibly clear water both sparkled in the sunshine, and across the lake the snow-capped mountains to the south were just visible. Issyk-kul means “hot lake” in Kyrgyz, for a combination of extreme depth, thermal activity and high salinity means that remarkably the lake never freezes and instead has a moderating effect on the local climate. “Hot” though was overstating it on the day we spent on the beach, and only Rachael braved the icy water, while Kieran opted to lie on the beach and sunbathe.

Central Kyrgyzstan

We crossed into Kyrgyzstan through a dramatic high mountain pass used by Silk Road traders for centuries, but which is now officially closed to non-local traffic. In practice this just meant that we had to hire private transport both sides of the border and arrange various permits, but ensured that other than a handful of trucks we were the only people crossing that day.

The landscape on the Chinese side of the border was harsh and dramatic, with bare sandstone cliffs of bright reds, yellows and purples rising out of the dry valley. The mountains act as a watershed, separating the desert on the east from the high grasslands to the west, and as we crossed the Torugart Pass the scenery changed instantly. Near the Pass the ground was thickly covered in snow, and then as we descended and the snow melted we could see the crumpled hills were covered in grass, giving them a softer, gentler appearance. The road changed too at the border, the newly asphalted Chinese surface giving way to a potholed dirt track.

We spent our first night in Kyrgyzstan close to a thousand year old caravanserai, in the home of the site’s caretaker. The caravanserai, Tash Rabat, is a beautiful dark stone building with rounded towers and a high dome roof that’s half sunk into the hillside in a hidden valley away from the main trail. We were the only people there and in solitude in the late afternoon light we explored its cold damp central chamber, dark passageways and platformed side sleeping chambers that would once have provided shelter for Silk Road traders and their animals.



We were met at Tash Rabat by Dzakshylyck who brought horses with him and for the next two days was to be our guide as we rode across the steppe. Undoubtedly one of the highlights of our whole trip, we rode under cloudless blue skies across some of the most beautiful countryside imaginable, through wide open grassy valleys that rose to crumpled hills and snowy mountains at their edges. For almost the whole of the first day we saw only a handful of herdsmen, also on horseback, all wearing the traditional Kyrgyz white felt hats that resemble miniature yurts. At times the only sounds were the squawks of marmots calling out a warning before they vanished into their burrows.

On the second day we passed increasing signs of human activity and habitation, yet continued to be struck by the emptiness of the landscape, and the enormous sense of space that there is here. There are few villages or even isolated houses in the huge open steppe, and the weather is still too cold for the nomads and shepherds to have set up their yurts in the open pasture. Even the towns look more like villages, with low-rise, detached houses spread thinly along wide streets, with room for animals to graze around each building, for the country’s five million inhabitants are vastly outnumbered by their livestock.



The riding itself was fantastic. Our horses were smaller than most in the UK yet significantly larger than the Mongolian horses we’d ridden and very sprightly, breaking easily into a canter when we urged them on, and easily jumping the ditches that streaked across our path. Neither of us had ever ridden before for seven hours a day though, and certainly not sitting on wooden saddles, so by the end of two days we were feeling slightly stiff and sore and were both sorry and slightly relieved to finish.


We spent our second night in Dzakshylyck’s house, and were again humbled by the Kyrgyz hospitality and generosity which have been a feature of our time in Kyrgyzstan so far. From the moment we arrived his wife and older daughter plied us with tea and food and the entire family went out of their way to welcome us and look after us. Tea is served differently here from anywhere else we’ve been: it’s milky for the first time since Nepal and Tibet, and poured by mixing a small amount of strong luke warm black tea from one pot with hot water from another. Served in small bowls by the woman of the house, bowls are refilled so frequently the hostess rarely seems to get a chance to drink her own tea.

Almost every night so far in Kyrgyzstan we have stayed with a family, often on a bed of sheep skin rugs and blankets made up on the floor, with carpets rather than pictures hung on the walls for decoration. Although lacking in privacy these homestays have been wonderful and a real highlight of our time here – providing a comfortable place to sleep, a warm welcome (far warmer than is offered at the old Soviet-style hotels which are the alternative accommodation), good food and a fascinating insight into what life here can be like.